12 Crazy Sequel Pitches That Almost Ruined Great Films

11. E.T. 2: Nocturnal Fears

It might not have got beyond the treatment phase, but somebody somewhere decided that the best way to bring Steven Spielberg's personified abandonment issues back to screen after the success of the original was to turn him into an action hero. The sequel would have pretty much openly ripped up everything that made E.T. such a success, including E.T. himself for the most part, as his role would be severely reduced, in favour of bringing in bad-guy aliens in line with Spileberg's initial idea of a family attacked by aliens.

And we can't even blame it on an external writing influence either: Spielberg and script-writer Melissa Mathison worked together on the nine page treatment for Nocturnal Fears, which featured some giant racist albino aliens that hated the brown guys like E.T. who would be revealed to be called Zrek, coming to Earth to hunt him. Naturally they can't find him, so they torture some animals, and then kidnap Elliott and his family, freezing them and then torturing them as well for information on the whereabouts of their shuffling prey. Good clean family film fun.

And as for E.T. he swoops in at the last minute to kick some albino butt, and then leaves again. Despite being the titular character.

So basically, that's E.T. going all Arnold Schwarzenegger in an effort to save his loved ones. Sort of exactly the same as the sequence in Gremlins 2 where Gizmo pretends to be a bad-!*$% Rambo-type, then...